Page 4/9
Thirty or so years later, Bernini’s fountain – which can be recognized without any doubt in Falda’s sketch – underwent further restorations and was somewhat enlarged by Carlo Fontana, as the third inscription records:
"This fountain – already restored by his predecessors – being disfigured by its great age, and with water overflowing because the basin was too small, was restored for public use in a more elegant form by Innocent XII [1691-1700] P. M. in 1692, the second year of his pontificate; this work being done after the squalor caused by dirt had first been cleaned away and the basin enlarged".
Two years later, the same Pontiff, issued a superb coin in eternal commemoration of this restoration and maybe of the significance of the cleaning operations.
You may think that the record of these operations handed down in the inscription on the fountain contains more than a little of the swagger and overenthusiastic phraseology of the 16th century. To be truthful, it must be recognised that the words of Innocent XII summarised a whole secular experience of repeated edicts and proclamations about the need to clean the fountains; unfortunately they were as fruitless as they were frequent. It must also be recognised that, despite Rome’s wealth of water, there were very few people who could have it in their houses, so all those who were without it had to crowd around the public fountains and water spouts – just like people without television now crowd around the one in their local bar. Indeed, to help you understand just how Romans in those days flocked to their beautiful fountains and how they used them for the strangest purposes, I hope you will enjoy learning about the contents of at least one of those famous proclamations. This extract comes from an edict of 28 January 1624, entitled "Edict for the conservation and cleanliness of the fountains of Rome"; part of it reads:
"Each and every individual is expressly forbidden to swim, to wash clothes, rags, barrels, smelting pots, buckets, tables or other sorts of wooden items, or dogs, cats and other animals in the aforementioned fountains of whatever kind"
which at least makes it obvious that Romans at that time loved cleanliness, since they even washed their cats in the fountains.
 |
 |
 |